


It Was So Real

by Lost_And_Longing



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Introspection, Rage, Read at Your Own Risk, Spoilers, WHAT THE HECK MARVEL, lots and lots of Spoilers, spoilers for avengers infinity war, the character death is canon, y'all know what's happening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-03 10:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14567031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_And_Longing/pseuds/Lost_And_Longing
Summary: SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS INFINITY WAR. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.***Last night, he'd had a dream. Now, the dust on his hands begins the most vivid nightmare he's ever lived.And at the center of both of them stands one person: Peter Parker.Or, Tony's thoughts before, during, and after Peter's disintegration.





	It Was So Real

"You should not be here!"

Peter's loyalty was going to be the death of him one day.

"I was gonna go home-"

"I don't want to hear it!"

Tony couldn't believe this. He'd done his damnedest to keep the kid out of this. He'd ordered FRIDAY to send Peter back to Earth - hell, he'd told the kid to go himself! He'd told Peter to jump off the spaceship and go back to his field trip, and if he'd given the kid that suit that he'd been working on for the past few months, then that was supposed to be an extra incentive to get him safely back on Earth. Tony had  _not_ meant it to kick-start Peter's self-sacrificial tendencies and extreme loyalty issues. 

"But it was such a long way down," Peter was saying, "and I just thought about..."

Tony sighed. "And now I gotta hear it."

"And this suit is ridiculously intuitive by the way, so if anything, it's kind of your fault that I'm here."

 _"What_ did you just say?" 

"I take that back," Peter recovered quickly. "...and now I'm in space."

"Yeah, right where I didn't want you to be." 

Yet here he was, caught up in the shitstorm containing a grape-flavored titan with serious genocidal tendencies, an evil mastermind Squidward, and a bunch of shinies capable of destroying the entire universe. If the two of them weren't currently listening to Doctor Strange being tortured by said evil Squidward, Tony would've given the kid the lecture of a lifetime. As it was, it was difficult not to blow up on him then and there. 

Fortunately, right then Strange let out a low cry of pain. Tony forced his brain back on track. He needed to think of a way to get Strange out of there. And keep Peter safe. And stop Thanos. And make this up to Pepper somehow once he got back. And do the million other things he needed to do.

Tony turned to Peter. He looked reluctantly at the kid and made his decision. Peter was already up there. Tony might as well use him. They needed to stop Thanos, and they needed everyone they could get. That didn't make it easy, but wars weren't won the easy way.

"This isn't Coney Island or some field trip. This is a one-way ticket, do you hear me? Don't pretend you thought this through."

"I did think this through! You can't be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there is no neighborhood. Okay that didn't make sense but you know what I'm trying to say."

Peter gave Tony a pleading glance. There was so much innocence in it, so much that screamed high-school boy. Tony abruptly remembered that dream he'd had and wondered for an instant if-

No.

He shook his head. Maybe Peter was right, but neither could there be a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man if there weren't a Spider-Man. However...that wasn't the point. Tony'd made up his mind. There was no other choice.

"Come on. We got a situation. See him down there? He's in trouble."

Peter opened his mouth, then shut it.

"What's your plan? Go."

"Um. Okay, okay. Uh…okay. Did you ever see this really old movie Aliens?"

 

* * *

 

The situation worsened with every minute. After they landed the ship on Titan, they found themselves fighting against a strange gang of people who identified themselves as the Guardians of the Galaxy. Tony swore his heart stopped beating for a moment when the one called Star-Lord pointed his gun at Peter's head. If anyone ever asked, though, he'd just tell them it was one of the many well-documented medical issues his heart had and not anything else.

What they didn't need to know was that Peter's affect on his heart was just as much of an issue as the shrapnel had once been.

The Protectors - Guardians - whatever, turned out to be against Thanos just as much as they were, so they joined up. Asslord - oh sorry,  _Star_ lord - completely disregarded everything Tony tried to say and plan, like the douche he was, while Peter stood a few feet away and remained as dumb, dorky, and overly polite as ever. Tony was on the verge of snapping and saying some  _very_ unpleasant things when Doctor Strange announced he'd been doing some prophetic sight-seeing.

"I went forward in time to view alternate futures," Strange told them, "to see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict."

"How many did you see?"

"Fourteen million, six hundred and five."

Peter's face became very impressed. What a kid.

"How many did we win?"

Strange paused. For a heartbeat Tony was terrified he'd say  _none._

"One."

And that was that. He didn't elaborate any further, didn't say anything about what they had to do in order to win.

Star-Lord exchanged grave looks with the rest of his gang, then looked over at Tony. When Tony failed to say anything, lost in his own thoughts, Star-Lord began planning once more. Tony barely heard him.

Why hadn't he made sure Peter was off the ship before it'd gotten any higher? Why hadn't he told FRIDAY to make sure he was safe? Why couldn't Tony even do thatright?

A deep, hollow feeling sank inside his chest, a chasm that widened every moment with his fear. They only had  _one_ chance at victory. Fourteen million possibilities, and only one of them came out okay. And even that...what was the cost of that single victory? _Who_ was the cost of it?

Because if victory came at the cost of Pepper or Rhodey or Peter, Tony wasn't sure he wanted to win.

 

* * *

 

"You throw another moon at me and I'm gonna lose it."

Honestly, Tony's adrenaline rush was such that he literally couldn't even feel his fingers - or maybe that was the fact he'd already gotten slung around several times. He was so high-strung he hadn't thought he could even feel fear...and then Thanos had crushed an entire moon within seconds and thrown it at him.

"Stark."

Oh, God. They were all going to die. He had been to hell and back enough to be friends with Satan, but he couldn't see a way out of this. And he had a bad feeling that was because there wasn't one.

"You know me?"

"I do. You're not the only one cursed with knowledge."

"My only curse is you!"

He launched himself at Thanos, battling with every last bit of strength he had left. Already he knew it was useless, but that desperate hope inside him, that hope that screamed  _I have to I have to save Pepper and Peter I have to at least try_ hadn't died yet. He couldn't, he could  _not_ let Thanos destroy the world. He couldn't let Thanos destroy  _Tony's_ world, that world of Pepper-Rhodey-Peter, even more.

The nano-bots in the suit were dying away one by one. Tony could feel the power in his suit flicker dangerously, but he kept going. He pushed away the logical side in his brain that calculated the loss and told him there was no way he was making this out alive. Maybe he wouldn't, but maybe Pepper would. He'd known for years that he'd give his life for her if he had to. Maybe the time had finally come.

Finally, as his armor began to break apart, he landed a blow. Thanos jerked back, massive thumb going to wipe away the blood from the wound. It was disappointingly small.

"All that," said Thanos, "for a drop of blood."

And then Thanos stabbed him.

Surprisingly, the pain wasn't that bad. 

By that, Tony simply meant that after all the near-death experiences he'd been through, this wasn't any worse than the others. Except, of course, that this...

He choked, feeling bile come up his throat.

...this might pass near-death and go straight into plain old death.

Tony didn't see his life flash before his eyes, but he never had before, and he figured he'd been just as close to death then. He did, however, see Pepper. He saw her smiling at him, eyes soft. He saw himself placing her engagement ring on her finger. He saw the pain in her eyes every time she tried to get him to put up the suit and he failed once again. He saw the disappointment in her face that morning when he'd promised never to leave again.

He guessed...he guessed he'd probably broken that promise.

"Stop."

That was Strange's voice from where he lay, bloodied and beat-up against a rock.

"Spare his life and I'll give you the Stone. No tricks."

_"Don't!"_

What had happened to 'I will not hesitate to let you die'? What had happened to choosing between one person and the whole  _universe?_

Tony reached for the blade around his stomach, but he was too weak. He tried to open his mouth to speak, to protest, to do  _something,_ but he was too slow. By the time he'd formed even one word on his tongue, Thanos had cast Tony aside. Strange pulled out the Time Stone and gave it to the titan. And as the green glow around the gauntlet faded, he vanished.

 

* * *

 

 _"What if somebody had died tonight?"_ He remembered asking once, worlds away from there and timelines apart.  _"Different story, right? Cause that's on you. And if you died? I feel like that's on me."_  

Tony stood there and watched. His suit was failing, his skin mottled with bruises, and the hand he lifted to his face was covered in blood. Around him, his allies stood in defeated silence, knowing there was nothing more they could do to stop Thanos. They had lost.

Tony watched, too exhausted even to get angry at Strange for trading away the universe for one person's life. Even if Strange had had a reason, even if Tony were somehow connected to that one winning reality he'd seen, Tony still couldn't forgive it. Because they'd lost. But the anger he normally would've felt was absent, replaced by numbness. There was nothing fiery or angry about this loss; nothing sharp or clear or cold. There was only a tired silence, a wearied and dull ache that was ever-present in all of them.

Tony watched in silence as first one, then two, then more slowly faded into dust. Too tired to feel fear or grief or sadness, he only watched as the breeze blew the dust of Star-Lord's remains away, his last  _oh man_ echoing in the stillness.

He turned and locked eyes with Strange. And he watched as finger, hand, arm, shoulder slowly turned to dust.

"Tony," Strange said as he faded, "there was no other way."

The dust extended up the other arm, past the leg, to the head, and then he was gone.

Tony just watched, staring at the ground. His brain tried to tell him he had to move. He had to get to Pepper and make sure she was safe. She wasn't -  _couldn't -_ be...no. She...couldn't be. She was fine. Rhodey was fine. Peter-

Peter?

Oh, Tony thought with a detached sort of horror. He'd forgotten about Peter. Peter, who'd come after Tony'd told him not to. Peter, who was just as likely to be part of the half as anyone else. Peter, who should not be there.

And yet...

"Mr. Stark? I don't feel so good."

...there he was.

Tony saw hair turn to dust. Saw edges of dust curling around the suit. Somehow in the midst of overwhelming numbness, Tony found the strength to speak.

"You're alright."

It was a lie and they both knew it.

"I don't- I don't know what's happening, I don't know what to sa-say."

Peter collapsed into him, shaking. Tony wrapped his arms around the kid and felt dust rub onto his hands. Peter sagged, grabbing desperately at Tony as though he were Peter's salvation. 

"I don't wanna go, don't wanna go Mr. Stark, please...please I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go..."

Tony's battle-tired muscles gave out, unaided by his suit. He loosened his grip on Peter and laid him down against a protruding rock.

Dimly, the back of his brain asked if this were really happening. Surely it couldn't - couldn't be real. It couldn't. He'd dreamed enough times of Peter's death before, after all - this was just another dream. Another trauma-induced dream his shitty brain gave him that he'd wake up from at three in the morning. He'd wake up soon, sweaty and terrified, and he'd probably have a panic attack, but that was okay because Peter wouldn't be dead. Peter wasn't dead.

Peter wasn't dead  _yet._

Because the dust was spreading and Tony felt the grittiness of it under his nails in a way no dream could ever replicate. He smelled the blood smearing his suit. He heard Peter's frantic gasps and chokes as death's scythe loomed ever nearer. He tasted the bitter iron of dirt and blood, and then he watched as Peter turned his head and met Tony's gaze for the last time.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

And then Tony was left with nothing but dust in his hands and lingering memories behind his eyes.

He sat numbly for what seemed like years, hand over his mouth - to keep from screaming or as a support he didn't know. He stared at the scattered dust slowly drifting across the rock. Somehow he couldn't believe that that was all there was left of the kid. His kid. The kid of his dreams, both his worst and his best.

He'd been right. He'd been right all along.

Tony stood, cringing at the dust clinging to him, and turned. He faced Nebula.

Peter Benjamin Parker's loyalty had indeed been the death of him. And it was all Tony's fault.

**Author's Note:**

> sooo that happened. Who else is still recovering from Infinity War?


End file.
